35 



new species is to be considered in this respect. The description 

 and the plate of H. multiflora already published may be supple- 

 mented by photographs and by some remarks on the possible 

 value of this new species for use in hybridization, which aims to 

 obtain new daylilies of merit for culture in flower gardens. 



Thus far there have been but ten plants of the species H. multi- 

 flora available for observation by the writer. These came to The 

 New York Botanical Garden in 1925 as divisions of wild plants 

 obtained at Ki-Kung-Shan, Honan, China, by Dr. A. N. Steward, 

 then a member of the faculty of the University of Nanking. It is 

 believed that these are the only plants of this species now in cul- 

 tivation. These ten plants differ somewhat among themselves in 

 vigor of growth and in the season of blooming. But in the char- 

 acteristics of the flowers and capsules and in general habit of 

 growth they are all very similar, and they are distinctly different 

 from any other known species. 



One outstanding character of this species is the rather large 

 number of flowers which a scape may bear. The scapes are, as a 

 rule, abundantly branched above and thus a single scape may pro- 

 duce as many as one hundred flowers during the entire season of 

 bloom. But these flowers mature over a somewhat extended pe- 

 riod, and so the plant has a long season of blooming and there are 

 not many flowers open during any one day. The photograph of 

 Figure 4 shows this condition ; at the time when it was taken the 

 scape had been in flower for several days and tiny buds were ap- 

 pearing from which flowers would open several weeks later. For 

 a large well-established plant, there may be several scapes having 

 from thirty to as many as one hundred flowers each, and the 

 blooming of the entire plant may continue for a period of six to 

 ten weeks. The specific name multiflora seems appropriate in re- 

 gard to the total number of flowers produced by scapes. 



During the four years that these ten plants of H. multiflora 

 have been under observation at The New York Botanical Garden, 

 one plant has always bloomed in July while the others have begun 

 to bloom rather late in August, and in 1929 some continued to 

 yield flowers until as late as November 22, which was the date of 

 the first severe frost. 



But the plants of H. multiflora do not have the "evergreen" 

 habit of growth characteristic of certain other daylilies. Their 



